Twitter announced a new social experience called Twitter Spaces in private beta back in December last year. It was an effort to introduce live audio chat rooms to its users, a lot of whom were hopping on Clubhouse. Now, the company has announced that it is opening up Twitter Spaces for all Android users too.
The experience, in case you didn't know, was only open to select users on iOS. This expansion is clearly aimed at luring Android users, who are still waiting for Clubhouse to land on their operating system.
https://twitter.com/TwitterSpaces/status/1366767412117458946?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
This testing, by the way, isn't going to offer a full-fledged experience on Android just yet. According to Twitter, Android users will only be able to join and talk in existing Spaces, but won't be able to start their own. That particular feature will land "soon", Twitter says. We don't have an exact timeframe for the same.
Twitter has been particularly quick about bringing Spaces to more users. Rightfully so, because there is currently a lot of hype around live audio chat rooms thanks to the explosive launch of Clubhouse. Twitter has also been very transparent about its roadmap and is welcoming feedback from its users. The company even hosted a Twitter Space for users who were using it to collect feedback. Notably, Twitter is also considering bringing Spaces to the web interface.
If everything works out well and Twitter manages to keep up this fast pace, it will most likely beat Clubhouse to offer support for Android. Clubhouse app is currently available only on iOS that too on an invite-only basis. It will be interesting to see the kind of features Twitter rolls out for Spaces in the coming months.
Now that Twitter has expanded the testing, Android users won't have to rely on the beta app to check out Twitter Spaces. When live Spaces are available, they'll appear at the top of the Twitter timeline for Android to hop in and join the conversation.